Enhancement of Instrumentation for Clustered Mesospheric Studies at the Mid-Latitude Bear Lake Observatory (42°N)

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This is a Major Research Instrumentation award to enhance the existing instrumentation at Utah State University's Bear Lake Observatory. Upgrades will be made to the Fabry-Perot Interferometer, the Imaging Doppler Interferometer, and the all-sky imager. The instruments will be used to study the coupling between atmospheric regions and long-term trends in the mesosphere, lower thermosphere, and ionosphere. The Bear Lake Observatory provide data from a unique vantage point in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, which are a likely source for many of the gravity waves that influence the dynamics of the middle atmosphere. The improved instrumentation will establish BLO as a key site for investigating long-term changes in the mid-latitude mesosphere and thermosphere. The new data will add to and strengthen the existing database that has been built up during the past decade, and the facility will provide key validation and correlative measurements for current and future space-based missions.